Ask HN: What to do about entering a patent-encumbered field?

#1

Post by yigu » Sun, May 20, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

I really want to launch my startup, but I am afraid of how I would deal with patents. The field I am launching in has about as many patents as other sections of the software community, and these patents are held by IBM and Microsoft as well as other startups.

I am really passionate about the effort I have put in so far. I would be happy to license these patents if that was on the table. But what happens if I get sued and they don't want to let me license their patents?

I am really worried and I don't know what to do. Will all of my effort have been for nothing but a learning experience?

ALSO !!!!: I do not know how HN handles offering legal advice. If there is a liability reason I totally understand locking/deleting this post.

Re: Ask HN: What to do about entering a patent-encumbered field?

#2

Post by Nomentatus » Sun, May 20, 2018, 4:40 AM UTC

IANAL - If my reading of business history is of any service, you build your software or demo (you don't need a patent to tinker as long as you aren't distributing it or selling it or making money of it.) Then you demo it to those with blocking patents you've had to incorporate in your work. (Hopefully you have tech you can patent.) Then you negotiate.

Remember, patents can only be obtained for methods, not results - so in theory if you can find a new method to accomplish what they did, that's cool, you just got around their patent. (This is what Watt of steam engine fame did, in the end, when negotiations for patented tech he really needed proved futile. Took him a while to come up with a parallel invention or two he needed.)

So as noted, these negotiations can go very wrong - or proceed very well.

Find out what patent exchanges have already happened between the relevant companies. If, as is frequently the case, a number of companies have the rights to the whole palette of patents blocking you thanks to those rights swaps, you may only have to make one deal, with any one of those companies and can therefore take the best offer, playing each company off against the others. For a final deal to distribute your software through them, say.

Note that FRAND patents won't be a barrier to you. (Unless someone wants to break the law to thwart you, and that's happened too.)

Re: Ask HN: What to do about entering a patent-encumbered field?

#3

Post by streetcat1 » Mon, May 21, 2018, 4:12 AM UTC

So, first, most of the patents issued today, lack novelty or failed to mention prior art. If you can find prior art before the patent in question, it basically cleans the field.

Second, you might want to lunch in any country where the filer did not register a patent. For example Japan. After establishing the company and the idea, try to penetrate the US with more money for legal battle (or not at all if you do not see traction).